What to Look for in a Medical Answering Service
When evaluating medical answering services, practice owners should prioritize solutions that take a modern approach to call processing. This includes everything from iron-cladding your call triage and notification processes to integration capabilities with your existing systems to provide your staff and callers with a seamless customer service experience.
Identifying an answering service partner that utilizes structural guidance for agents is paramount to ensure consistent call processing. Many rely on antiquated methods of processing, relying on agents to review pages of instructions in hope of identifying the correct way to handle each call. A modern answering service provider will program your instructions directly into an intuitive call-taking interface that react to each call scenario and advise agents in real-time of next steps.
Seek providers that can easily integrate with existing workflows and technology systems. The ideal service should connect directly with your EHR/EMR system to log patient interactions automatically, update patient information in real-time, and feed care team details when needed.
Providers that offer robust scheduling capabilities can be a boon to operational efficiency and cost-reduction strategies. These capabilities allow agents to book appointments directly through your preferred software without manual data entry, freeing up existing office staff to focus on core competencies.
HIPAA compliance and secure messaging capabilities are non-negotiable. Your answering service should support third-party secure messaging applications like DocHalo and MiSecure for compliant texting, ensuring all patient communications meet regulatory standards. This eliminates the need for separate communication platforms and maintains comprehensive audit trails.
The service should also provide real-time access to patient information, enabling agents to update records, access care team assignments, and maintain current contact details across all platforms. It turns your answering service from a simple call-taking solution into an extension of your practice’s operational infrastructure, reducing administrative burden while improving patient care continuity.
HIPAA-Compliant Answering Services for Medical Practices
HIPAA-compliant answering services provide practice owners with risk mitigation and operational benefits. A compliant medical answering service will have agents undergo annual HIPAA certifications, follow best-practice with data security and storage, and secure messaging options. With 24/7 coverage, owners can maintain consistent patient communication, reduce liability exposure, and optimize existing staff. This allows practices to maintain competitive service levels while controlling overhead expenses.
This is How CMS Does It Right
CMS delivers medical answering services through proven technology that eliminates common pain points experienced with other providers. Supporting health care organizations for 50+ years, our platform eliminates error-prone processes and connects directly with your practice systems to ensure accurate, consistent patient communication every time:
- Call Flow Control: When agents begin categorizing and filtering calls, the system automatically splits the process flow entirely, guiding agents through specific questions and procedures without guesswork.
- Hard-Programmed Notifications: Urgent call notification processes are built directly into your account structure, ensuring the correct method, order, and timing every time.
- Real-Time On-Call Portal: Unlike competitors who rely on email communication or Excel files, our web-based portal enables immediate schedule adjustments and feeds directly into platform automation.
- EHR/EMR Integration: Our system automatically logs patient interactions, updates patient information, and accesses care team details in real-time without manual data entry.
- Supplemental Information: Our structured protocols can be built to include scripted troubleshooting and searchable FAQs, providing resolution to common issues or questions.
- Compliant Messaging: We support third-party secure messaging applications like DocHalo and MiSecure for compliant texting that meets HIPAA requirements.
- Stress-Free Scheduling: Our appointment scheduling assimilates with your existing software, allowing agents to book appointments while maintaining data synchronization across all platforms.
Let Our Medical Answering Service Handle Your Calls, So You Can Care for Your Patients
Medical practices and hospitals provide critical and essential services to our communities, and ensuring the highest standard of patient care is paramount. However, you only have so many resources. If your staff is balancing face-to-face patient consultations with a never-ending wave of calls, something’s got to give.
Voicemail and impersonal automated systems are options, but neither offers the accuracy or human touch your patients deserve. Many also lack escalation or redundancy in notification procedures, leaving you vulnerable to missing a singular message or notification attempt. We have spent 50 years refining our medical call answering service. Today, our tailored solution allows you to uphold your values of integrity and patient care by providing professional, live operators who can answer and take action on your calls any time, day or night.
A medical practice answering service you can trust to get it right
Every medical practice is unique, but they all have one integral value in common: the patient experience. Our compliant medical answering services are 100 percent customizable. So whether you run a dental clinic that needs an after-hours answering service or an OB/GYN looking for an accurate and cost-effective appointment scheduling solution, we can assist.
Our systematic intake process begins with structured call filtering and triage protocols that categorize each interaction appropriately. For example, our after-hours team will dispatch their call to on-call personnel using detailed and up-to-date contact procedures unique to each clinician. Through scripted troubleshooting and searchable FAQs, we handle common questions consistently while maintaining proper notification protocols. We can also advise callers to visit the emergency room or dial 911 for life-threatening emergencies while referring non-urgent calls to regular office hours.
Features
Medical Answering Services & Call Center Solutions
Our call center services give medical offices the technology and personnel required to reduce distraction, minimize errors, and provide a welcoming and personalized patient experience. We use structured processes focusing on proper intake, filtering, and triage to maintain consistent protocols across all interactions. Our industry-specific solutions can be tailored and tweaked to meet your specific needs. These include the following:
After-Hours Medical Answering Services
Health emergencies, questions, and concerns do not abide by regular office hours, and your patients may need assistance at any time, day or night, 365 days a year. However, depending on the nature of your medical clinic or facility, answering after-hours calls may be impossible without disrupting on-site team members or hiring extra staff.
Our after-hours medical answering services can handle your calls outside regular office hours. We can capture messages and pass them on to the relevant doctor, route inquiries to the appropriate on-call medical professional, schedule appointments using your preferred software, and more. We can also respond to emergency calls.
Emergency Dispatch and Physician On-Call Management
Emergencies can strike at any time of day or night. Our team is available and prepared to answer and take action on calls by routing callers to the correct on-call personnel using their personalized contact procedures. Critically, we ensure emergency calls are handled quickly and accurately without error or distraction to doctors.
We can also use automated scripting to identify call types and tailor our procedures based on the caller’s responses, giving them a truly customized experience. Our systematic intake process filters and triages each call through structured protocols, ensuring consistent evaluation and appropriate routing every time. For example, if the caller’s responses trigger our emergency procedure, we can advise them to visit the emergency room or phone 911 in addition to paging the appropriate on-call doctor.
Every element of our service is designed to fit your emergency call-handling procedures, from how we answer the line to the information we gather to how we triage and route calls. These structured protocols maintain consistent notifications, so the right person gets contacted through the correct method in the proper sequence. We truly work as an extension of your practices, handling your calls as you would internally.
HIPAA-Compliant Answering Service
While the handling of the caller is important to the success of a medical office, how the information is handled and protected is just as important. This is why we offer HIPAA-Compliant Answering Services for medical clients, ensuring sensitive patient health information (PHI) gathered during each call is secure and compliant with the latest HIPAA policies and requirements.
To ensure that your answering service doesn’t put you at risk for any violations, according to the terms of HIPAA for a “business associate,” they must:
- Safeguard PHI
- Report data breaches or leaks
- Have a detailed list of internal practices for PHI security
- Encrypt data
- Regulate & educate staff
- Limit access to patient data
CMS is proud to be HIPAA compliant through hard work and investment in research, company policy, and infrastructure to ensure 100% compliance with HIPAA. In addition, our SMS message system has been tested for HIPAA compliance as outlined by the American Medical Association.
Virtual Medical Receptionist
For many patients, your receptionist is their first point of contact with your medical office, and the wrong impression can have far-reaching repercussions.
Our friendly virtual medical office receptionists ensure every caller is given the time and level of service they deserve while enabling on-site staff to focus on their core duties distraction-free. We also understand the importance of upholding your clinic’s values while maintaining error-free record-keeping. Our HIPAA-compliant, 24/7 virtual receptionist services are made to meet industry needs, yet are customizable to your specific circumstances.
Appointment Reminders
Anyone who works for or visits a medical practice knows how busy they can be. It’s often necessary for them to schedule appointments months in advance. Combine this situation with very busy patients, and medical offices are seeing a massive increase in no-shows for appointments. This situation leads to a loss of revenue for the practice and delayed care for the patient. Every missed appointment can cost you thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
By utilizing Patient Appointment Reminders to notify patients of upcoming appointments, practices of any size can reduce losses due to missed appointments. And instead of burdening your current staff with making these calls during their already busy day, CMS can take the load off of them and perform this task for them, freeing them up to address other core responsibilities.
Medical Auto Attendant, IVR, and Automated Answering
Our HIPAA-compliant auto attendant, IVR, and automated answering services are tailored to meet the needs of medical clinics, hospitals, and doctors’ offices. These call-answering solutions are engineered to eradicate errors and provide an intuitive, helpful, and personalized patient experience by prescreening messages, accurately routing calls, and providing appointment reminders.
You can build customized phone trees, relay pre-recorded information to callers, and create engaging on-hold messaging that assists rather than aggravates waiting callers. Plus, our auto attendant, IVR, and automated answering solutions can be integrated with your preferred software, so you can keep your medical office running smoothly.
Our system can deliver pre-recorded information to callers and automatically screen and route calls based on your unique business requirements.
Learn more:
Patient Appointment Scheduling
Many people do not have time to schedule during your office hours. With appointment scheduling services from CMS, our call center agents can schedule appointments around the clock. Live scheduling agents from CMS allow your patients or customers to call and schedule at a time most convenient for them, be it during the day or after hours. By accommodating the scheduling needs of all your clients, you can fill your schedule and make more money.
By utilizing our appointment scheduling call center to work as an extension of your office and schedule appointments on your behalf, you can ensure patients always have an easy, convenient scheduling option available 24 hours a day.
Allow your staff to concentrate on more important tasks while CMS helps your customers or patients schedule their appointments. Interrupting your team when assisting patients in the office or working out a billing issue can be frustrating and inefficient. Instead, let them do what you hired them to while we cover your phone calls.
Overflow Answering Service
Your patients do not want to wait on hold, leave a voicemail, or call back later. They want assistance immediately, but your in-house receptionists can’t always meet demand. That’s where our team comes in to help.
Our overflow answering service picks up whenever the need arises, delivering the following benefits:
- Reduced hold times. When your medical facility experiences a high volume of calls, we step in so that your patients don’t have to wait on hold. This is critical to the overall patient experience, as almost 60 percent of people believe one minute on hold is too long.
- Improved patient satisfaction. Whether facing a medical concern requiring immediate attention or scheduling a routine check-up, if a patient’s call goes unanswered, it can negatively impact your practice. We ensure all calls are answered and given the time they deserve.
- Empower your staff. Our overflow call answering service gives your on-site staff the breathing room to deliver an exceptional patient experience and undertake their core duties.
24/7/365
Availability
100%
Customizable
3,000+
Clients
99.99%
Uptime Guarantee
Why Use an Answering Service?
While it’s true that people depend on digital technology a lot when it comes to communication, nothing beats live answering services from CMS if you want to better serve your patients and clinicians while improving your bottom line. We can help you:
Save Money
CMS helps you lower your operating costs. You don’t have to buy equipment or hire staff. Only pay for the time our agents spend handling your calls.
Remain Available
Be there for your prospects, customers, and employees with around-the-clock support. Our 24/7 availability keeps your business moving and ensures you never miss an important call.
Improve Service
Improve customer satisfaction by extending your customer service capabilities and delivering friendly human support on every call. Every caller will appreciate receiving courteous and professional service.
Reduce Distractions
CMS improves your availability, not on-call distractions. Our services are customized to the needs of your office and providers, so you get the messages you need and none that you don’t.
Patients Expect to Reach You By Phone — CMS Ensures You Are Always Available
Calls are preferred for quick service
There’s nothing like a quick phone call to get a customer service concern resolved or addressed immediately, so we understand why patients want to speak to a real person.
50% of consumers (regardless of age) contact customer service using their telephone.4 They don’t want to waste time on an endless cycle of back and forth through email or messaging.
So, when you make sure there’s somebody professional at the end of the line taking care of your callers, you’re also showing them how much you care and value their time.
Don’t help your competition
Did you know that 61% of customers who are in the middle of the buying cycle call the business they’re interested in?5 Can you afford to lose out on valuable leads or prospective customers if you do? And can you bear the thought of them going to your competition?
At CMS, we know the rewards of consistently answering calls, as well as the consequences of ignoring or not being able to attend to other calls. One phone call can make a world of difference to your business, so we won’t be taking any chances. Neither should you.
Protect your reputation
Ever get that awful feeling when no one seems to be available to answer your calls, especially when there’s no other way to resolve your concern?
When people are made to feel ignored, you lose their loyalty. They start to question the credibility and reputation of your brand, so it’s no big mystery why 68% of customers leave a company because they think it doesn’t care.6
With CMS, you can build up your reputation and keep your customers loyal to your brand no matter what.
Say goodbye to voicemail
Answering machines may have been a novelty the first time they were introduced. Today, however, voicemails are not only considered productivity killers but are also untrustworthy — that is, people assume nobody ever listens to them and that they’ll never get their problem resolved.
Besides, other than baby boomers and Gen Xers, millennials and members of Generation Z probably make up a portion of your market, so it’s useful to know these younger generations can be averse to voicemails.7
So, better not leave phone calls to chance.
Partner up with CMS and see your loyal customer base grow like never before!
Deliver A Personal Touch 24/7
Your patients’ medical needs don’t cease when your office is closed or unavailable.
When your patients call with something important, voicemail and automated telephone systems are the last things they want to deal with.
They want to talk with a professional, compassionate live operator.
As a health care provider, it is essential to give your patients the personal attention they want and need 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
At CMS, we provide live operator health care answering services to medical offices of all shapes and sizes.
Customized Solutions for Your Practice
CMS is not a one-size-fits-all solution. We are an extension of your practice and tailor our answering services to meet your needs.
Our goal is to combine your standards and practices into our solutions. Our services reflect your brand, follow your instructions, and integrate with the existing systems that you use to do business.
Everything is customizable from how we answer calls to the scripting we follow and the procedures we follow to dispatch calls.
We can even securely integrate with your scheduling system or practice management software.
Our solutions can be designed to deliver non-urgent calls via email, text message, fax page, or direct phone call. Urgent calls can be relayed directly to you or your on-call staff.
It all depends on what is best for you and your on-call providers.
Reduce Errors with Online On-Call Scheduling
Our web-based on-call scheduling software makes managing your on-call rotation a breeze.
Set your schedule in advance, make real-time updates, maintain multiple schedules, personalize contact rules for each staff member, determine escalation procedures, and more — all synchronized directly with our call center.
Health Care Call Center Services Done Right
We work so you do not have to. All of our after-hour medical answering services are fully HIPAA compliant.
Every call we answer for you is recorded and time-stamped for quality assurance, and you will be notified in detail of each call should you need to respond personally.
Trusted by professionals across the country, CMS allows you to rest easy knowing that professionals are handling your clients’ needs.
Medical Answering Service FAQ
What is a medical answering service?
A medical answering service is a customizable outsourced phone-answering solution that involves live agents who answer the phone on behalf of a medical professional, practice, clinic, or hospital.
The agents are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They follow a customized script, providing a seamless patient experience and responding to calls accordingly. For example, they might route an after-hours call to the appropriate doctor or schedule an appointment using the clinic’s preferred software.
How does a medical answering service work?
A medical answering service works like this:
- First, the medical clinic or professional works with a company like CMS to build customized solutions that meet their specific needs. This often includes call scripting, on-call procedures, and call-handling instructions.
- Once live, the medical office forwards their regular phone number to the service. For example, this might happen after regular office hours or during high call volumes.
- The live agents answer the phone and provide patient support and service according to the medical office’s instructions.
- Finally, the agent will take the appropriate action — route the call to an on-call doctor or schedule an appointment, for instance — based on the caller’s responses.
How much does a medical answering service cost?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question because the cost of a medical call answering service will vary depending on factors such as the operation’s size and scope, the call center’s location, and the specific services offered. However, medical call centers typically charge per-minute rates for their services, with the average rate falling between $0.50 and $1.50 per minute.
Our medical answering service plans at CMS start at just $50 a month. Our 24/7 solutions are available for a fraction of what it would cost to hire an in-house receptionist, and we only bill you for the time spent handling calls on your behalf.
Our medical call center services can be tailored to fit the specific needs of your practice, so you only pay for what you need. Check out our pricing today to learn more!
How do you handle urgent calls after hours?
Every aspect of our medical answering service is customizable, from the greeting we use to the way we handle urgent calls.
Life-threatening emergencies can be referred to the emergency room, while after-hours issues requiring an immediate response can be paged to your on-call physician. We can take messages and hold them for office hours, or refer callers elsewhere. We work directly with you to script out every scenario and ensure that our call center agents handle each call per your expectations.
Sources
- https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/how-companies-can-improve-phone-call-pickup-rates-2021-1
- https://phmg.com/blog/research-reveals-telephone-remains-customers-preferred-method-of-contact/
- https://www.mactech.com/2022/03/03/research-reveals-consumers-and-businesses-prefer-voice-calls-to-text-or-email/
- https://d1eipm3vz40hy0.cloudfront.net/pdf/cxtrends/cx-trends-2020-full-report.pdf
- https://hbr.org/2017/07/your-customers-still-want-to-talk-to-a-human-being
- https://ecommco.com/blog/68-percent-believe-you-dont-care.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/fashion/millennials-shy-away-from-voice-mail.html